The results of a new study have found there is no link between the use of mobile phones and brain tumours.
The study, undertaken by the Danish Cancer Society over a 30-year period, has found that while mobile phone use surged during the 1990s, tumours did not become any more common.
“We did not detect any clear change in the long-term time trends in the incidence of brain tumours from 1998 to 2003 in any subgroup,” report author Isabelle Deltour wrote in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The research team analysed annual incident rates of glioma and meningioma, two types of brain tumours, among adults aged between 20-79 in a variety of Scandinavian countries, representing nearly the entire adult population of 16 million.
“In Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, the use of mobile phones increased sharply in the mid-1990s; thus, time trends in brain tumour incidence after 1998 may provide information about possible tumour risks associated with mobile phone use,” the researchers wrote.
And while the study did find an increase in brain tumours, it only occurred in 1974 before mobile phone use became common.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
